Stephen Engelberg Named Managing Editor of ProPublica

New York, NY (December 6, 2007)— Paul E. Steiger, editor-in-chief of ProPublica, a non-profit newsroom producing journalism in the public interest, today announced the appointment of Stephen Engelberg as managing editor. Mr. Engelberg is a managing editor of the Portland Oregonian and the former investigative editor of The New York Times. The appointment is effective January 1.

Mr. Engelberg brings to ProPublica 28 years of newspaper experience, including eight years as an investigative reporter and eleven years as an editor and leader of investigative projects. His work as a reporter and editor has focused on a very broad range of investigative topics, from sub-prime mortgages to terrorism to the pharmaceutical industry. His work as a reporter won two George Polk Awards and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize. He led two teams of reporters that won Pulitzer Prizes and four others that were finalists for that award.

ProPublica will have the largest news staff in American journalism devoted solely to investigative reporting, with roughly 25 fulltime reporters and editors, when fully staffed in 2008. ProPublica will be supported entirely by philanthropy and will provide the articles it produces, free of charge, both through its own Web site and to leading news organizations selected with an eye toward maximizing the impact of each article.

Mr. Steiger said, “Steve Engelberg brings great strengths—terrific and varied experience, unquestioned integrity, a passion for meaningful journalism in the public interest—to ProPublica. I’m delighted to have him as a partner in this endeavor, and I look forward to working with him to recruit the best possible group of reporters, editors and researchers.”

Speaking on behalf of the Board of Directors, Herbert Sandler, chairman of ProPublica, said, “We’re very pleased that Paul Steiger has been able to recruit Steve Engelberg, one of the most outstanding investigative journalists in the country, to help lead ProPublica. Steve’s appointment is an important sign of ProPublica’s determination to draw from the best American journalism has to offer.”

Support for ProPublica is being provided by the Sandler Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Mary Graham, The Atlantic Philanthropies, and the JEHT Foundation.

ProPublica’s Board of Directors includes Mr. Sandler, Mr. Steiger, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the Director of the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University; Alberto Ibargüen, the president & CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; former U.S. Rep. James A. Leach, the director of Harvard’s Institute of Politics; and Rebecca Rimel, the president & CEO of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Background

Stephen Engelberg comes to ProPublica from The Oregonian in Portland, Oregon, where he had been a managing editor since 2002. Before joining The Oregonian, Mr. Engelberg worked for The New York Times for 18 years, including stints in Washington, DC and Warsaw, Poland as well as in New York.

After beginning his career at the Times, he worked as a reporter for the Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk, Virginia and for The Dallas Morning News before returning to the Times to write news and investigative articles on national security matters. After a stint as the Times bureau chief in Warsaw immediately following the collapse of Communism, he resumed his work as an investigative reporter in 1993. Mr. Engelberg shared in two George Polk Awards for reporting: the first, in 1989, for articles on nuclear proliferation; the second, in 1994, for articles on U.S. immigration. A group of articles he co-authored in 1995 on an airplane crash was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.

Mr. Engelberg’s work since 1996 has focused largely on the editing of investigative projects. He started the Times’s investigative unit in 2000. Projects he supervised at the Times on Mexican corruption (published in 1997) and the rise of Al Qaeda (published beginning in January 2001) were awarded the Pulitzer Prize. During his years at The Oregonian, the paper won the Pulitzer for breaking news and was finalist for its investigative work on methamphetamines and charities intended to help the disabled. He is the co-author of "Germs: Biological Weapons and America’s Secret War" (2001).